January 2011: Hot fudge sobriety

If you take a small, precious living creature and make a home for it in a bowl of alcohol and drugs, eventually it will not know much about anything. If the creature spends a lifetime in the bowl and a moment of divine intervention plucks it out, it is a lucky start, but there is no reversal to “normal.” There is only learning everything for the very first time.

I was stark raving sober my first year. Every minute of every day of the first 365 days was a brand new experience. It was like being a newborn. The first birthday, the first Mother’s Day, the first shower, all the anniversary grief, writing the first letter without a glass of wine in hand, were as foreign to me as walking on the moon.

-- Snow P.

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

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